Why I’m Writing This

I’ve had mouth sores for as long as I can remember. Not occasionally. Not once in a while. Just… always.

When I was a kid, I had braces, and that’s probably one of the first times I realized this wasn’t a small thing. If you’ve had braces and mouth sores at the same time, you know how bad it can get. Metal rubbing against tissue that’s already raw. Sores reopening. Trying to eat and deciding it’s easier not to.

Me at 9 to 10 years old is when I learned that a mouth sore would make you salivate like a mastiff

Back then I didn’t really question it. I just assumed this was normal, that everyone dealt with it and maybe complained less than I did.

Turns out, that wasn’t true.

One of the weirdest parts hasn’t just been the pain, but how invisible it is. From the outside, a canker sore looks tiny. Almost nothing.

So when you say it hurts, people don’t really buy it.

“It’s just a mouth sore. You’re being dramatic.”

After a while, you stop bringing it up. You talk less. You eat slower. You make excuses. And somehow you end up feeling embarrassed about something that actually hurts.

That part stays with you longer than the sore.

And when the pain is constant, sharp, and right in the middle of your day, it messes with your judgment. When you just want it to stop, you will try dumb stuff. You will believe people who sound confident, even when what they are saying is irrational, or has no science behind it, or both. Not because you are naive, but because pain makes “relief now” feel more important than “does this actually make sense.”

In the 90s, doctors didn’t really explain much about triggers or long-term patterns. At some point I was prescribed carnitine. I honestly don’t remember why. It was just something to try, a very tasty palliative.

Carnetine, a trip into memory lane

It didn’t help.

I don’t say that with anger. I think it was just a sign of how unclear this whole thing was, and still is.

You try something, you wait, you hope, nothing changes, and you move on to the next thing.

That cycle repeated itself more times than I can count.

Then there were the home remedies. My grandma was big on salt and vinegar. Sometimes both together.

Those rinses burned like hell. Eyes watering, mouth on fire. And there was always this belief behind it: the more it hurts, the faster it heals.

Pain meant it was working.

Sometimes the sores went away. Sometimes they didn’t. To this day, I still don’t know if those remedies helped or if the timing just lined up.

But that idea, that pain equals progress, stuck in my head for years.

Even now, part of me still wonders if something that doesn’t hurt can really do anything.

I’m not writing this from the other side of the problem. I still get mouth sores. I still don’t have a clear answer. Some things seem to help sometimes. Other times they don’t. Patterns appear and then disappear.

That uncertainty is probably the hardest part. At least it has been for me.

I didn’t really plan to start a blog. I just got tired of searching for information and finding either generic explanations that don’t match real life, or very confident promises that don’t hold up.

There didn’t seem to be much space for “I don’t know, but this is what it feels like.”

So this is that space.

One of the goals of this site is to help people slow down, think clearly, and make rational decisions that actually help, especially when the pain makes you want to try anything.

I want to collect real experiences, mine and other people’s. Things that helped a little. Things that didn’t help at all. Beliefs we grew up with. Stuff that sounds stupid in hindsight but made sense at the time.

I’ll write about what it’s actually like to deal with recurring mouth sores. The triggers people talk about. The frustration of being dismissed. The small things that make it worse. The rare moments when something seems to help.

No miracle cures. No clean conclusions.

If you’re here because your mouth hurts today, I get it. If you’re here because you’ve been dealing with this for years and feel like people don’t really believe you, you’re not alone.

I don’t know where this will go yet. But it felt worth starting.